In The News
BEST NEWS OF THE DAY. Halo’s getting its own 10-episode season on Showtime! “In its adaptation for SHOWTIME, Halo (working title) will take place in the universe that first came to be in 2001,” Xbox announced. “Halo will be executive produced by Killen, Wyatt and Scott Pennington, along with Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank for Amblin Television. The series will be distributed globally by CBS Studios International.”
Nothing else matters. Shh. Only Master Chief now.
Amy Hennig left Electronic Arts in January after it shut down Visceral Games and started her own indie studio, GI.biz’s Brendan Sinclair reports. “‘I get along with all those people, I consider even the guys on the executive team friends, but it made it awkward because I never got a chance to announce that I’m not at EA.’”
Game Critics Awards released nominees for Best of E3 2018.
The first months of 2018 saw “13.5 million ‘new first-time purchasers’” on Steam, PC Gamer’s Joe Donnelly writes. “[Jan-Peter] Ewert tied this figure—around 3.375 million new buyers per month between January 1 and April 30—to Steam’s recent increase in supported currencies.”
Epic Games handed out $1 million “in Unreal Dev Grants … to award 37 game development teams,” VentureBeat’s Jason Wilson reports.
Taunt has raised “$3M in a seed round led by Foundry Group,” TEO’s Trent Murray writes. “Taunt is a mobile app which allows users to compete in challenges centered around an esports broadcast.”
Niantic acquired Matrix Mill, according to its press release. “The Matrix Mill team comes from University College London, where they spent years building and perfecting deep neural networks that can infer information about the surrounding world from one or more cameras.”
Gary Dale is Sega Europe’s new president and chief operating officer, GI.biz’s James Batchelor reports. “He will oversee all European businesses from the firm’s London headquarters.”
Mass Effect: Andromeda was mediocre, not bad. Fight me. Minus the Reyes bit, that was a damn tragedy. Anthem executive producer Mark Darrah went on a 7-tweet rant about it earlier this week. He started by asking the question: “I’m going to regret this in half an hour but let’s talk ‘did MEA get a fair shake.’”
Partnership News:
100 Thieves and StockX are partnering, Esports Insider’s Adam Fitch writes.
Magic Gaming and HyperX partnered, Murray reports. “The team has acquired two new sponsors in the last month since hiring partnership development manager Gabriel Causse.”
Cooler Master and eDen Esports Bar are partnering, Fitch reports. “The bar is best known for providing a place for both PC and console gamers to have fun and compete, with regular tournaments taking place.”
Miscellaneous Esports News:
Shaquille O’Neal is one of the major names playing in “the ELEAGUE Street Fighter 5 Invitational 2018 Celebrity Showdown,” Dot Esports’ Nicole Carpenter reports. “The celebrities will be fighting for charities of their choice. O’Neal is supporting Odessa Chambliss Quality of Life Fund.”
Hearthstone player Torben “Viper” Wahl did an interview with Dot Esports’ Callum Leslie about getting back on the competitive stage. Here’s a snippet: “‘I always want to talk myself into thinking I am favored, I don’t want to go into a game thinking I am disadvantaged. Generally I…’”
Universal Open Rocket League will be livestreamed on YouTube and Twitch, according to a press release. “NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app will also provide streaming coverage, as well as host VOD content.”
Jacob “Alpharad” Rabon IV acquired a minority stake in Panda Global, Murray reports. “Rabon’s YouTube channel will begin to feature Panda Global branding and cross promotion with Panda Global players.”